I have just installed the latest version of XAMPP - 1.7.2. I had version 1.6x installed over a year ago but deleted it. I am running Vista Ultimate SP1 32 bit on a Dell Dimension DM061 Dual Core 1.8GHz with 4Gb RAM.
I am having no luck getting Apache to start either manually or as a SVC. The log in the XAMPP control panel claims Apache service started, though I do not get the green message "Running" beside it liek I do for the MySQL service (I have set them both as a service to make them load on start up). I looked through the documentation and saw a note about Skype hogging port 80 so disabled that and rebooted Skype. No change. Accessing http://localhost/ takes me to the MS IIS slashscreen. So Apache (and by association XAMPP) are not working. Also, I saw someone ask another user with problems to do a port check to see what was going on. If I do that, I get the briefest of flashes on my screen (a command window) but it never stays open so I am unable to say what it is telling me. The other user was able to see it. Is there a manual way to run this rather than clicking the button in control panel?
I am not really that clued up in this area of computers so am stumbling along in the dark with no real ideas on even where to start looking, so I apologise if my info is too vague or thin for proper diagnosis. 1/6 was a breeze. Installed and ran perfectly first up.
Digging through the forums I found where the error log for Apache is (DOH, it was pretty obvious when I read where it was!). Checking in it, I find this error relating to the problem... "(OS 10013)An attempt was made to access a socket in a way forbidden by its access permissions. : make_sock: could not bind to address 0.0.0.0:80
no listening sockets available, shutting down"
Hope this helps.
Ian